The pressure is on: 3D capture must adapt to grow in AEC

  • November 29, 2017

This year, BIM Forum was held in conjunction with the USIBD‘s (U.S. Institute of Building Documentation) Fall Forum, the non-profit body that defines the level of accuracy standardization framework that is applied to many as-built scanning projects in North America. The conference focused on information management procedures in the construction industry, with a heavy emphasis on users and service providers describing best practice when using 3D scanning or reality modelling to drive many construction procedures.

“Three years ago, we needed to explain what a point cloud was, now everyone knows.” [sic.] Ken Smerz, Eco3D

Day 2 of BIM Forum had industry veteran Ken Smerz presenting a session called “Scanning 101.” In this general assembly session, Ken provided a very relevant summary of what scanning—and its associated point cloud deliverables—can provide for the construction industry. Though the presentation made it clear that point clouds are no longer a novelty, it was Ken’s Q&A and conclusions that I found most relevant, because they offered a way of gauging how people are really using reality capture for building documentation.

Ken’s conclusions highlighted a change in paradigm: While scanning, in the past, has been used most profitably in the collection of as-built data for the pre-build phase of a project, now the value of reality capture is in quality assurance (QA) and monitoring the project throughout the build.

The challenge is that there is no budget line-item for QA

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